Chris Backe is the director of financial services at Velocify
and a sales-automation expert with more than 20 years of
experience offering technology solutions to multiple
industries. Backe has spent the last 10 years in the financial-services industry, holding various positions at industry-leading technology companies, including Ellie Mae and
Salesforce. Reach Backe at cbacke@velocify.com.

Technology Can’tReplace the Human TouchUsing automation to enhance personalized service isthe path to closing more mortgages

By Chris Backeto manage costs — which was driven by the wave ofnew regulations and agency requirements that sweptthe industry after the housing crisis.

At the same time that lenders were adopting tech-

10 years ago. In recent years, the number of consumers

Although technology has given consumers greater
access to more information about mortgages than
they ever had before, these consumers are not necessarily better informed. In fact, in some ways, technology may have distanced borrowers from the human
expertise they traditionally depended on to make the
largest financial transaction in their lifetimes.

Many borrowers today do not fill out mortgage
applications online, however, even when they have
the opportunity — and that includes millennial buyers, whom we assume prefer an online experience.
It turns out that it is not a digital mortgage that consumers want so much. Rather, they want a good loan,
which involves getting human expertise at the appropriate times in the process.

Recent data from the McKinsey Group shows that
compared to social media, e-mail is 40 times more
effective at gaining new customers. Today, mortgage
professionals are swarming to Facebook and Twitter,
yet many originators fail to respond to an e-mail from
a potential borrower the same day it was sent.

Focusing on borrowers

Making the mortgage process faster and more efficient remains an important goal that also benefits
consumers. Yet mortgage professionals who want
to take advantage of today’s strong housing-market
fundamentals to grow their business would be wise
to focus less on how quickly they can move prospects

Related ArticlesFor more articles on technologyin the mortgage industryView these articles and more atScotsmanGuide.com“Remote Notarizations Gain Digital Traction,”

Pem Guerry,
February 2017

“Machine Learning Offers a Way Forward,”

Lance Poole,
November 2016

“Blast Off With Technology,”

George Reichert,
October 2016

Anyone who has kids probably has seen them experience a moment of confusion over “old technology.” In fact, there are hilarious videos online of children try-ing to use rotary phones, typewriters and 1980s-eraSony Walkman music players. When you watch thesevideos, you can’t help but wonder how long it will bebefore a child looks at a pencil and piece of paper andwonders: “How do these things work?”That day may not be upon us just yet, but perhapsit will come sooner than we think. Consider howquickly mortgage production has become highlycentralized and automated. It’s still a highly paper-based and fragmented process, but automated under-writing, electronic signatures and online borrower“portals” that let consumers self-drive the approvalprocess are quickly becoming mainstream. Loanapprovals can be achieved in minutes thanks to newautomated borrower-verification tools.

Yet, even with all this technology, the overall mortgage experience hasn’t gotten better for consumers.
Financing a home is still confusing and even a bit scary
— and it’s even more nerve-wracking when borrowers do not get the help they need when they need it.
To reverse this trend, lenders will need to find ways to
give borrowers both the technology and the human
expertise they desire, and at the right times in the
transaction.

Evolving tech impact

It could not be a better time to improve the mortgage
experience for consumers. Job growth and incomes
are relatively strong, the U.S. is experiencing the highest home-sales rate in more than a decade, and the
Mortgage Bankers Association expects purchase-loan
volume will increase this year and again in 2018.

The last time the housing market was this strong,
more than 10 years ago, few consumers were getting
approved for mortgages online. Back then, mortgage
originators were in control of a process that was neither
very automated nor efficient, at least from the borrower’s perspective. Since then, our industry has
seen an enormous number of innovations. We can
now verify a borrower’s income and assets almost
instantaneously.